The world of space and time has no independent existence; it is included in the Atman or the supreme Self. The Self is the Paramarthikasatta (absolute reality), while the space-time world has only Vyavaharikasatta (pragmatic reality) relevant only to empirical experience. Space has a meaning in the distinction that is commonly made between in and out, here and there, this and that, etc. This distinction obtains only so long as there is no recognition of the true relation that subsists between the two points related. The ultimate relation among things is pure consciousness, independent of objects, and the non-experience of it is the condition of the perception of spatial difference. The differentiation of the knowing self from its object is the prerequisite of the appearance of space. The moment the Self is segregated from the contents of its knowledge, there is the notion of space and time arising in it. In the undivided consciousness of the Self the distinction of in and out, here and there, etc. gets merged, and space, whose essence is this distinction, gets negatived. For the same reason, temporal distinction has no meaning to the Self, for the Self is consciousness which knows even this distinction. The division of time into past, present and future has a spatial import, and the non-spatial Self ought to be non-temporal, too. While the time-series is to be identified with a state of change, the Self which witnesses all change is known to remain changeless. All change is an appearance consequent upon the false isolation of the Self from the objects, and vice versa. The agency of the Self in action, and the validity of action, also, are based on this erroneous notion of the individualisation of consciousness as separated from its objects. The knowledge-essence of the Self becomes evident when its spatial embodiment and temporal confinement are known to be unreal. The individuality of the individual, the plurality of the selves and the diversity of objects are all transcended in the oneness of the Self. The whole of Samsara consists in confinement to space-time, for it arises on account of the misconception that the body is the Self, this misconception being simultaneous with the rise of the notion of space and time. The essence of the Self is knowledge, and this knowledge has no in and out, here and there, etc., for it is universal. The Kathopanishad declares that whatever is here is also there, and whatever is there is also here, and that he goes from death to death who perceives here diversity, as it were. In the Atman there is no plurality or duality, and so no space or time. In the words of the Chhandogya Upanishad, the Atman alone is below, above, before, behind, to the right, to the left; the Atman, indeed, is all this. As the Atman is inside as well as outside of all things, space and time are not significant to it. “How did space manifest in the spaceless Brahman? How did East, West, North and South come into existence? This also is a creation or trick of the mind. When you are tired, even a furlong appears to be a mile. When you are vigorous, a mile seems to be a furlong. For a Jivanmukta or seer there is neither time nor space. He beholds Brahman which is timeless and spaceless” (Philosophy and Teachings: p. 89).

In his commentary on the Brahmasutras, Swami Sivananda makes the following remarks in regard to space: Ether is not eternal but created. The Purvapakshin says that Akasa is not caused or created because there is no mention to that effect in the creation passage of the Chhandogya Upanishad. He holds that Akasa is eternal and not caused, because the Sruti cited does not speak of it as caused, while it refers specifically to the creation of fire. But, the Siddhantin replies that there is a Sruti which expressly says that Akasa is created. Though there is no statement in the Chhandogya Upanishad regarding the causation of Akasa, yet there is a passage in the Taittiriya Sruti on its origination. ‘From that Self sprang Akasa, from Akasa air, from air fire, from fire water, from water earth.’ It is objected that the Taittiriya text referred to, which declares the origin of Akasa, should be taken in a secondary or figurative sense, as Akasa cannot be created, for it has no parts. As a spaceless state antecedent to the creation of space cannot be predicated, space cannot be said to have a cause. As space is all-pervading, it must be causeless. Against this objection it may be said that the scriptural assertion that from the knowledge of Brahman everything is known can be true only if everything in the world is an effect of Brahman. Because the Sruti says that the effects are not different from the cause; therefore, if the cause, Brahman, is known, the effects also will be known. If Akasa does not originate from Brahman, we cannot know it by a knowledge of Brahman. And by this the scriptural assertion would become false and Akasa would still remain to be known, as it is not an effect of Brahman. But, if Akasa is created, there will be no such difficulty at all. Hence Akasa has to be admitted to be an effect and as created. It is an element like fire and air, and so it must have an origin. It is the substratum of an impermanent quality, viz. sound, and as such it must be impermanent. This is the direct argument to prove the origin and destruction of Akasa. The indirect argument to prove it is: Whatever has no origin is eternal, as Brahman, and whatever has permanent qualities is eternal, as the soul, but Akasa, not being like Brahman in these respects, cannot be eternal.

We see in this universe that all created things are different from one another. Akasa is separate from earth, etc. And Akasa also must be an effect. It cannot be eternal, and it is not stated by anyone to be self-existent. The all-pervasiveness and eternality of Akasa are only relatively true, for Akasa is not an effect of Brahman. It is not right to say that with reference to the origin of Akasa we could not find out any difference between its pre-causal states (the time before and after its origination). Brahman is described in the Sruti as not gross and not subtle. The Sruti refers to an Anakasa (spaceless) state, a condition devoid of differentiation. Brahman does not participate in the nature of Akasa, and so it is a settled conclusion that before Akasa was produced Brahman existed.

Akasa has an Anitya-Guna (non-eternal attribute), and so it should be Anitya (non-eternal). The perishability of Akasa is known from its being the substratum of the non-eternal quality of sound, just as jars and other things which are the substrata of non-eternal qualities are found to be non-eternal. Scripture and reason show that Akasa has an origin. And this origin is Brahman, which does not admit of non-eternal qualities (Vide, Brahmasutras: Vol. I, pp. 418-433). In his Ten Upanishads, Swami Sivananda says that space and time manifest themselves first, that the first prerequisite of relative existence is extension and that, when there is time, events come in succession. He concludes that, even when one imagines that nothing exists, space will remain and that, when space is transcended, knowledge of the Self ensues.

Time is non-eternal like space. It is in the nature of things in time to exhibit a tendency to reach beyond themselves towards a state exceeding the present one. All things in this world acquire a meaning when they are understood in terms of their existence in time, and shorn of all relevance to it, they have no significance. Every object or event in this world is at once connected with a past and suggests a future, though it has also a present. Nothing can exist merely in the present without reference to a past and a future. A present without a past or a future is inconceivable to us, for it means eternity beyond time, of which we can form no idea. Individual existence has a hypothetical present which is inconceivable without reference to what preceded it and what lies ahead of it. It is this connection of things and events with parts of a succession of temporal experience that makes them relative. The world is in time, and time is not in the eternal. Time has a speciality in that individuals have no power to move in it, though they have an ability to travel in space. This, perhaps, explains the phenomenon of our being anxious not so much to be ubiquitous as to be immortal. There is a desire in all beings to perpetuate their existence and their actions, reflecting thereby the presence of an eternal something which is their ultimate ideal. The perception of time is the consciousness of the succession of events or cognitive acts, and when attention is centred in a particular fusion of a certain group of successive moments of cognition or acts of awareness, the consciousness of duration within the jurisdiction of that attention goes by the name of the present time.

Things in this world of time do not exist but flow in a series of events. The world is not being but becoming. Time is becoming, while eternity is being. Every event in the temporal world has an infinite past and an infinite future, and the chain of the order of events does not seem to have either a beginning or an end. Though every event is related to every other, our consciousness of an event does not contain this cosmic relation, but takes the event as a truncated unit in a continuous series of bits of process which seem to be externally related to one another. But in the eternal, the whole can be seen to be present in every one of its parts, which are all connected with it in an internal relation. Temporal events, as viewed from the standpoint of the eternal, are not externally related bits, but a mirroring of the Absolute. As far as ordinary experience is concerned, the consciousness of time cannot be separated from the consciousness of space. Whatever we know is not only in space but also in time. This makes one feel that space and time are not two different realities conditioning experience in different ways, but appearances or aspects of one reality. Modern science calls this matrix space-time or a four-dimensional continuum, the acceptance of which seems to imply the negation of the commonly accepted values of individual bodies that are believed to be contained in space and time taken as separate entities. The truth of individuality lies not in itself alone but in the complex structure of the total experience constituted of different factors, viz. space, time and selfhood. We always think and believe ourselves to be in space and time, and never in a space-time unity, for, to think in a space-time unity would be not to think at all as individual beings.

“Time is a mode of the mind. Time is a mental creation. Time is a trick or jugglery of the mind. Time is an illusion. Brahman is beyond time. It is eternity.” “Tomorrow becomes today and today becomes yesterday. The future becomes the present and the present become the past. What is all this? This is a creation of the mind alone. In Isvara everything is present only, everything is here only.” “There is neither day nor night, neither yesterday nor tomorrow in the sun. The mind has created time and space. When you are happy, time passes away quickly; when you are unhappy, time hangs heavily. This is only a relative world. The theory of relativity of Einstein throws much light on the nature of Maya and this world” (Philosophy and Teachings: pp. 88-89). “Time is a false thing. When you are concentrated, three hours appear as half an hour. When the mind is wandering, half an hour appears as three hours. In dream, within ten minutes, you see events of a hundred years. The mind will make one Kalpa as one minute and one minute as one Kalpa” (Ibid, p. 102). “Time is caused by the succession of events. How can there be time in eternity? Space is distance between two objects. How can there be space when you feel and behold the Self everywhere?” (Secret of Self-realisation: p. 75). It is our habit of thinking in terms of a before and an after that is responsible for our perception of time. In fact, we cannot know time if there are no distinguishable events which we understand to be taking place in space. There is implied an idea of extendedness even in the idea of the succession of events in time. The difference that we observe between two instants of time—and in the perception of this difference alone is contained the meaning of time—can be valid only on the supposition of the existence of space between the instants. Though, in a way, it can be said that space and time rise simultaneously in our consciousness, we seem to discover in it a precedence of the idea of space, without which even instants of time cannot be known. The notion of duality is common to both the consciousness of space and the consciousness of time. And we are accustomed to think of duality and difference as distinction in space. As the ultimate reality is non-dual, time, which is characterised by the duality of instants, cannot be predicated of it. Reality is not in time. It has neither a past nor a future but has its significance in a transcendent present. This present is not, however, the one that we know here with our minds. It is a timeless present, an instantaneous now, with which a spaceless infinitude gets fused in a divisionless experience. This is our real Self.

Swami Sivananda teaches that the real is not bound by space and time and that, therefore, whatever is limited to space and time must be unreal. As our knowledge in this world, our thoughts, feelings and reactions are within space and time, they cannot have the character of reality. Space is divisible and reality is indivisible. Space and time disclose in themselves a tendency to self-transcendence. The intellectual habit of taking for granted the finitude of the self does not give us truth. The truth is that reality is not limited to the body but encompasses the whole universe. It is the Virat, Hiranyagarbha and Isvara, all in one. Its essence is Brahman. The misery of life consists in the consciousness of the separation of oneself from the universal reality of Brahman, and perennial bliss is in the experience of the oneness of the self with Brahman. In every act of the mind there is an assertion of the separation of the self from reality, and so it must naturally be of the nature of a hungering for that happiness which it cannot find anywhere in the realm of its operations. Mental activity is painful, for it is a search for that which it has lost by isolating itself from that which it seeks.